


Dear Dead Old Dad

by tisfan



Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Ghosts, Canonical Character Death, Haunting, M/M, Paranormal Investigators, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-06
Updated: 2020-08-06
Packaged: 2021-03-05 20:13:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 875
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25751155
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tisfan/pseuds/tisfan
Summary: For Starkbucks Bingo: Square Filled: N2: Paranormal Investigator (and this MAKES my bingo, all the Ns straight down)Tony is being haunted, and he no longer cares who knows it. Bucky Barnes is a paranormal investigator with a sense of ethics.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Tony Stark
Comments: 58
Kudos: 255
Collections: StarkBucksBingo2020





	Dear Dead Old Dad

Bucky Barnes had seen believers of every flavor; the ones who desperately wanted to believe there was life after death to the ones who desperately needed forgiveness from the one who’d passed on, to ones who needed to know more mundane things like where’s the money you stashed away. He’d seen more than his fair share of hostile mortals who needed a ghost driven out, or silenced.

He’d even worked a few times for the ghosts themselves, who needed someone to accuse their murderer, or to cleanse their resting place so they could, in fact, _rest_.

He’d never quite come up against anything like Tony Stark.

“Excuse me, what?”

“You want more money? Fine, three million,” Stark said. He didn’t sit nervously in Bucky’s very comfortable client chair. Instead, he was resting his hip against Bucky’s desk, looking over Bucky’s bookshelves with something like palpable contempt.

“It’s not about the money, Mr. Stark,” Bucky protested.

“Don’t be stupid,” Stark said. “It’s _always_ about the money. You get rid of dear dead old dad, and I’ll pay you whatever you want. I don’t care. Go on _Ghost Hunters_ and sell the film rights.” 

“All right, first off, I don’t do that,” Bucky said. “My clients’ privacy is very important to me. There will be no tell-all book or film or exclusive interview. Anything you want to tell the press about it that’s on you, but they won’t hear it from me.”

Stark didn’t quite look like he believed Bucky, but that was okay. Stark didn’t really look like he believed in ghosts, either, and yet, here he was in Barnes Paranormal Investigator’s office.

“Okaaay,” Stark said.

“Right, have a seat, Mr. Stark, and tell me about your haunting.”

“You mean about dear old dead dad? Everyone knows he died in a car accident,” Tony said. “Drunk driving. I thought ghosts only haunted the place where they died, or the person that killed them. I’m not either of those things, and he won’t leave me alone.”

“Do you have any witnesses to anomalous phenomena?”

“Beg your pardon?”

“Has anyone else seen the ghost? Seen you interacting with it?”

Stark scoffed. “I’m not about to _tell people_ I’m seeing spooks.”

“Aside from me,” Bucky pointed out.

“You already believe in that sort of shit,” Stark said. “If someone was going to call your bluff or yank you off the board of directors for being delusional, it would have happened already.”

“Right,” Bucky said. “So, no witnesses.”

“If he’s haunting anyone else, they haven’t said so,” Stark said. 

“When did this start?”

“Well, Mom and Dad were in their car accident in December,” Stark said with forced lightness. Everyone knew about the accident. When one of the richest men on the planet died, it was national news. “I had one… weird dream after the funeral.”

“Tell me about the dream?”

“I was standing near the gravestone, bringing flowers. You know, you have to do that, it’s expected. But at the same time, it’s not like I can really _mourn_. Bring flowers, look off into the distance. That’s it. If I cry, there’s paps all over me. Stupid. So in my dream, I’m bringing flowers, and Dad looks at them and says, ‘there’s ghost pipe on the road where I died.’ So, like super useful, right? I don’t think much of it, but the dream-- haunted me.”

“Did you have it again?”

“No,” Stark said, slowly. “I just found myself thinking about it. All the time. Trying to analyse it. So, after my visit to the gravesite for my birthday, I went out to the scene of the accident. I don’t know what I was expecting. It was months ago, it’s not like there was any evidence.”

“And yet--”

“There were these flowers, little white mushroom looking things.”

“Ghost pipe.”

“Yeah. After that, I started seeing the ghost. Like Dad lured me out there and then latched onto me, somehow.”

“Tell me about the ghost,” Bucky invited. “When do you see him? Does he speak? Is he fully materialized?”

“I mean, I see all of him,” Tony said. “Not just a floating head or anything. But he’s translucent. In color, though. Not like white-pale special effects. No floating sheet or anything.”

“Wearing the same clothes as at the funeral?”

“Yes--”

“That’s where the sheet comes from,” Bucky said. “Bodies were wrapped in sheets. Mission ghost. Wants revenge.”

“Huh?”

“Ghosts who were wronged in life,” Bucky said. “If he looked _dead_ , like immediately after his death, it usually indicates someone who was murdered. That’s just a working theory. Depends on the ghost. The key is really, _when_ did the deceased decide not to move on?”

“Knowing Dad? He got all the way to Saint Peter -- or whoever does that job in Hell -- and got mad when he didn’t have answers. He’d have stomped back right after that.”

Bucky nodded. “All right. I’ll take the case. My fees--”

“I already said that I would pay you whatever you want,” Stark said. “Just make him go away.”

“I’ll do my best, Mr. Stark,” Bucky said.

“And don’t call me Mr. Stark, okay? That’s Dad. Tony is fine.”

“Tony then.”

“Thank you.”

“I’ll get my kit together and we’ll get to work,” Bucky said.


End file.
